Tower Defense (1)
[Quest Triggered]
[Floor 16 Conquest]
[Objective: Defeat 50 monster waves]
[Guide: Use coins to build fortifications and purchase attack/defense support towers, traps, and more]
[Time remaining until first wave: 30 minutes]
[Choose a foothold within the time limit]
Floor 16 was a vast battlefield.
The view from the entrance looked as though several worlds had been fused into one.
To the left stretched an endless desert, to the right a dense primordial forest, and beyond that lay a frozen ice field.
Each region had completely different climate and terrain.
“Where should we go? Look over there!”
Several teams gathered around the massive map set up at the entrance.
“The desert would be best! The sand will slow the monsters down!”
“No, the forest’s the best! If we set traps between the trees, we can make a perfect defense!”
“What about the ice field? It’s slippery, so the monsters will just fall over on their own!”
Every team was locked in a fierce debate.
[Teams currently entered: 11]
“More than I expected.”
It was the point at which the major guilds were beginning to make a serious push into the Tower.
“Hyung, where should we go?”
Park Minsu asked in an eager voice.
Kim Jun studied the map closely.
There’s no denying the desert’s strengths.
The sandy terrain would drastically limit the movement speed of melee monsters.
Especially the larger the monster, the deeper it would sink, to the point where it could barely move at all.
With only a small investment in defensive towers, they could endure the waves.
But there was a fatal weakness.
It’s helpless against long-range attacks.
The desert was flat, offering no cover at all to block projectiles from goblin archers or orc spearmen.
Once the waves passed twenty, they’d be one-sidedly pounded by ranged monsters.
The same goes for the ice field.
The frozen ground was a natural trap that sent monsters slipping and sprawling.
But it was not easy to endure the extreme cold in battle that lasted more than six hours.
Worse, the ice would also restrict their allies’ mobility.
Not only Kim Jun, but every hunter around him had come to much the same conclusion.
The five who had recently joined them said nothing, but their eyes kept drifting toward the hills and high ground.
But then—
“Let’s take the flatland.”
“Huh? Hyung?”
“Oppa, I don’t think that’s right…”
“Guild Leader, isn’t the flatland way too dangerous?”
His companions were startled. To anyone looking at the map, the flatland was the worst possible choice.
“Just trust me.”
At Kim Jun’s confident voice, the original four said nothing more. He had never made the wrong call.
The five newcomers exchanged glances and quietly followed after him.
Kim Jun’s reason for choosing the flatland was simple.
If it’s flat, I can turn it into a fortress.
Once every team had taken their positions, a system window appeared.
Tower Defense Shop Opened!
[Attack Towers]
— Archer Tower Lv.1
└ Attack Power: 50
└ Range: Mid-range
└ Cost: 50 coins
└ Upgrade: Lv.2 (100)
— Cannon Tower Lv.1
└ Attack Power: 150
└ Range: Long-range area damage
└ Cost: 100 coins
└ Upgrade: Lv.2 (200)
— Magic Tower Lv.1
└ Attack Power: 100
└ Range: Mid-range piercing attack
└ Cost: 150 coins
└ Upgrade: Lv.2 (300)
[Defense Towers]
— Stone Wall Tower
└ Durability: 500
└ Cost: 10 coins
— Iron Wall Tower
└ Durability: 1,500
└ Cost: 30 coins
— Lunarium Tower
└ Durability: ∞
└ Cost: 500 coins
The shop had many options, but the one that caught Kim Jun’s eye was only one.
Lunarium Tower.
Floor 16 was called a “gold rush” for good reason: the monsters spat out an enormous amount of gold.
It poured out more gold than any other floor by far.
But there was only one reason it did so.
Because to succeed here, they had to buy a great many towers.
And yet most hunters, dazzled by immediate profits, couldn’t bring themselves to invest aggressively in defense.
After all, how hard-earned was that gold?
Kim Jun was different, though.
He had already obtained a million coins from the Floor 100 reward in Eldorado, and more than anything, he simply wasn’t particularly greedy when it came to coins.
Coins were money meant to be spent on conquering the Tower.
So Kim Jun decided to invest boldly.
The other defensive structures had durability, meaning they would break with time, but the Lunarium Tower was expensive precisely because it could never be destroyed.
Kim Jun intended to use it to build a massive fortress.
To completely reshape the terrain itself.
“First, one thousand Lunarium Towers.”
“Huh?”
“A thousand?!”
“Oppa, that’s five hundred thousand coins… isn’t that a little too much?”
Everyone was startled, but Kim Jun had already completed the purchase.
[Lunarium Tower × 1,000 purchased]
[Coins spent: 500,000]
At that moment, a massive 3D placement screen unfolded before Kim Jun’s eyes.
Let’s begin.
Kim Jun started moving his fingers.
First, he checked the Command Fortress at the heart of the team’s territory.
If this building was destroyed, the entire team would be disqualified. It was the core structure.
He placed it where not a single monster could ever reach it.
“Around the fortress… like this.”
With a sweep of Kim Jun’s hand, the Lunarium Towers began rising one by one from the flatland.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
“Waaah!”
“The ground’s shaking!”
With a massive tremor, the flatland began changing in an instant.
Kim Jun’s design was simple.
He would build a giant spiral maze around the Command Fortress.
To reach the fortress, monsters would have to circle from the outside in, step by step.
“Build the path like this…”
As Kim Jun traced the route with his finger, the Lunarium Towers continued to be arranged in the shape of the Korean consonant ㄹ.
The monsters would start at the entrance, go down, then sideways, then up again, then left, and so on, forced to keep winding deeper and deeper inside.
And atop each Lunarium Tower—
“One hundred Archer Towers, fifty Cannon Towers, thirty Magic Towers.”
[Purchased 100 Archer Towers] - 5,000 coins
[Purchased 50 Cannon Towers] - 5,000 coins
[Purchased 30 Magic Towers] - 4,500 coins
Kim Jun placed the attack towers one by one atop the Lunarium walls.
“Hyung…”
Park Minsu was unable to finish a sentence.
“Hyung, from now on I won’t doubt a thing. Even if you split the sea, fly through the sky, or grab a dragon, I’ll believe you!”
“What are you even talking about?”
“No, seriously—did a person actually build this? Isn’t this the domain of the gods?”
Park Minsu clasped his hands and pretended to bow to Kim Jun.
“Cut it out. You’re making my skin crawl.”
The finished structure was truly magnificent.
The towering Lunarium walls formed a giant spiral maze, and on top of them sat hundreds of attack towers packed tightly together.
But Kim Jun’s design still wasn’t finished.
“Final step.”
At the maze’s end point, right in front of the Command Fortress, Kim Jun began creating a huge circular plaza.
“Add fifty more Lunarium Towers.”
[Lunarium Tower × 50 purchased] - 25,000 coins
Thunk-thunk-thunk-!
A perfectly circular wall rose up around the Command Fortress, almost like the Colosseum of ancient Rome.
“What is this?”
Choi Doheon asked, curious.
“A corral.”
Kim Jun explained.
“The monsters that make it through the zigzag maze will all end up massing in this circular plaza. Then the ones that were coming out one by one from the narrow passage will suddenly be packed together by the hundreds in a wide-open space.”
“Ah…”
“If they somehow survive all the way here, we just wipe them all out at once.”
Now the entire structure was complete.
The monsters would be pelted continuously as they made their way through the zigzag maze, and even if they barely survived to reach the final plaza, they would be caught in concentrated fire in a circular arena blocked off on all sides—a perfect killing field.
And the final step was—
“Jia.”
“Mm?”
“Finish them off.”
Ryu Jia’s area magic would cut off their last breath.
His companions, watching all of this unfold from behind him, were in a state of utter shock.
“W-what the hell is that guy?”
One of the new team members muttered under his breath.
Just the amount of money Kim Jun had spent so far was already over seven hundred thousand coins.
That was a fortune ordinary hunters could never hope to amass in a lifetime.
And yet Kim Jun had spent it as casually as if he were tossing out pocket change.
How does he have this many coins…?
Even if they pooled together every coin they owned, it still wouldn’t reach one-hundredth of what Kim Jun had just spent.
Then they understood.
Ah. So this is that person.
The legendary record that had echoed across the entire hunter community.
The one who had achieved every first clear.
The one who had done it all was Kim Jun.
There was no other way to explain the scene before their eyes.
[5 minutes remaining until Wave 1 begins]
Kim Jun lazily pulled out a folding chair and sat down. He even crossed one leg over the other.
“That’s everything done.”
There was truly nothing left for him to do.
The towers would shred the monsters on their own, and if any somehow survived, Ryu Jia’s area magic would take care of them.
And if even that failed, Han Suin was there.
“…”
Already, she had her hand on her sword, staring straight ahead.
So all Kim Jun had to do was sit back and wait.
“Ah, everyone.”
“Yes, Hyung!”
“Could I maybe take the coins that drop from the monsters?”
Kim Jun scratched his head and asked with a genuinely apologetic expression.
Park Minsu’s eyes went wide.
“Hyung, you spent seven hundred thousand coins! Why are you even asking that? Of course they’re yours!”
“You can’t be the one saying that.”
Kim Jun waved him off and looked at the newly joined team members.
“What about the rest of you? It feels a little wrong if I take everything myself…”
“Huh? Oh, no, not at all! We didn’t do anything.”
“You did everything, Kim Jun-nim. We really couldn’t…”
“It’s truly fine!”
The new team members waved their hands in a panic.
He had built an entire fortress worth seven hundred thousand coins on his own, and now he was apologetically asking about coin distribution.
Where in the world could you find a person like that?
In particular, Jo Minjae was left deeply shaken by the sight.
So… this is what a leader looks like?
It was the complete opposite of Han Seojin, whom he had served for three years.
What had Han Seojin been like?
Even when leaving a guild member all alone in heaven, he had coldly said, “So what do you want me to do?”
He had slapped his cousin, the deputy guild master, in front of everyone.
Everything had been about himself. The guild members had been nothing more than tools for his own goals.
Because of that, Jo Minjae had been certain the other guild leaders would be no different from the image the media painted of them.
But the Kim Jun before his eyes?
He had personally invested more than 700,000 coins, yet he was still worrying whether it was all right to take the loot for himself.
Han Seojin as a rival? What a joke.
Jo Minjae was certain of it.
This wasn’t an act. It was courtesy and consideration that had become second nature. It was the natural expression of character built up over a long time.
It was on a completely different level from Han Seojin’s fake smiles and calculated gestures in formal settings.
I want to be part of a team like this too…
A desperate wish began to bloom inside Jo Minjae’s heart.
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